The puck-moving ability Josh Manson has been diligently working on has helped him amass a career-high 30 points, making him the Ducks’ top-scoring defenseman this season. He is also the only Ducks player to have played in all 70 games. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

ANAHEIM — The finished product appears nightly at Honda Center in the form of a 6-foot-3, 215-pound defenseman for the Ducks who is equal parts effective passer and tough-as-nails battler in front of his net, with a dash of offensive know-how and a hint of mean thrown in.

To describe him as such would fit the ideal of what a hockey coach wants in a player at that position. If only Josh Manson saw him himself as that – a finished product. That might never happen.

“I would say, I’ve made the NHL and I feel like I’ve been playing some decent hockey as of late,” Manson said. “Just doing what I need to do. There’s always going to be room for improvement. I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with my game.”

And there lies the crux of what Manson is all about. Work. Especially when you were never a natural, never became the first-round bonus baby. Especially when defense hasn’t always been your position and trial and error became part of your development.

His journey to become what he is now – a fixture of all-around strength on the Ducks’ blue line – can be traced to the British Columbia Hockey League, a level of competitive hockey that’s one level below Canadian major junior hockey.

WILLING TO LEARN

While playing his second season for the Salmon Arm Silverbacks, then-coach Tim Kehler had a bit of a predicament. He didn’t have a couple defensemen at his disposal coming into an upcoming game. Manson had played the position when he was 11 but became a forward and stayed there for years.

“I think there was like 11 games in,” Manson said. “He saw some things in me that he saw in another player that he had who ended up having good success when he moved him back to (defense). He said, ‘Would you be willing to try it?’ I said, ‘For sure.’”

The first practice was, in his words, “terrible.”

“I did a couple drills and I wasn’t very good,” Manson said, chuckling. “I just didn’t know how to play the position. Was just a little awkward. Once I was thrown into a game, I wasn’t very good but at least I was more comfortable.

“It was better when I was taking in the play rather than trying to play forward.”

Kehler, who now coaches in Austria, did see something. Manson could skate well but he was not a scorer. As Manson recalls, his line that included Devin Gannon and Brett Knowles – among his best friends who he keeps tabs on to this day – was one that didn’t mind dropping the gloves.

“I think I got in 10 or something fights that year,” Manson said. “We accepted our role and we had fun with it.”

But that first BCHL game on defense ended well, with two points scored. Kehler had tapped further into something that had already existed.

“I was always very defensive-minded when I was at forward,” Manson said. “I was never a guy who would cheat for offense. Was always the third guy high and tried to make sure I was above the puck and my angles were good. Stuff like that.

“So I was always inherently in a defensive mindset. Once I moved back there, you kind of get into the habits of how you move on the ice. Everything else and the reads just kind of came naturally.”

A strong season with the Silverbacks got the attention of the Ducks, in particular scout Glen Cochrane. Cochrane, who largely covers the western parts of Canada for the team, pressed scouting director Martin Madden on Manson’s potential vast upside and Madden used a sixth-round draft pick on him.

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES

There was still a lot of growth to do. Manson went the college route at Northeastern, where incoming coach Jim Madigan saw a player with some raw edges to smooth out. “He would literally skate up the ice and toe pick and fall down without anyone around him,” Madigan recalled, laughing.

By the time he finished his third year with the Huskies, Manson had become a respected captain, a second-team All-Star in the Hockey East and was voted the conference’s best defensive defenseman. “His work ethic and drive was tremendous,” Madigan said.

While his devotion to improving his puck skills struck a chord with the coach, it was his no-nonsense approach to the captaincy that left the lasting mark. Manson pushed the Huskies, a team that included future NHL players Kevin Roy, Matt Benning and Zach Aston-Reese, to their first winning record in five years.

“He was sick and tired of losing our first two years,” Madigan said. “He put a stake in the ground here and that’s where his leadership skills really emerged. And that confidence in the leadership of running the room carried over the on the ice. It all came together for him that third year.

“Still, the puck skills needed to improve, which they have tremendously. But that toughness and grittiness and the skating ability. People were afraid to go against him.”

Some of those players are who he still battles with in the NHL, most notably Calgary star Johnny Gaudreau and New York Rangers forward Kevin Hayes. After three years, Madigan saw someone who had to turn pro. Manson was a player he felt had come the farthest during his affiliation with the school, which dates to when he played there in 1981.

“He could have come back and worked on parts of his hockey,” he said. “But he needed to be challenged by men and that’s why he went to the pros at that point. It was the right decision.”

PLAY THE GAME HONESTLY

The league has evolved and fighting isn’t nearly as prominent as it was in the 1980s and ’90s. But the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Those who have watched the Ducks often have seen the son level an unsuspecting opposing player with a teeth-rattling check in the open ice.

“He’s always had that quality,” the elder Manson said. “He’s not afraid. He takes the body. He absorbs a lot of checks too. He just plays the game honestly. He plays it straight up. If the checks are there, he takes them. If they’re not, he doesn’t run out of position to make the big hit.

“It’s a physical game. If that’s a part of his game, then so be it. That’s something that he’s never shied away from, for sure.”

That is the thing Manson, now an assistant coach with the Western Hockey League’s Prince Albert Raiders, tried to impart while Josh was growing up. Play hard, play right. Defend your teammates if the occasion warrants. Madigan knows all about the last part.

Thinking back to a game against Maine when they had to win to reach the postseason, Madigan remembered when their hopes were being dashed late in the contest and two Black Bear players were taking liberties with a Husky teammate. It was salt being poured into an open wound.

“The game’s winding down, and he comes back to the bench and he says to me, ‘Coach, just give me the go and I’m going to take care of that kid who hit one of our players,’” Madigan said. “I said, ‘No, this isn’t junior hockey. You can’t do that.’ Josh goes, ‘No, coach, I’m serious.’ I said, ‘No, Josh, I’m serious also. You can’t do that.’

“But he was the ultimate warrior mentality. I’m sticking up for my teammates. That story resonates because God knows, he would have just killed the other kids from Maine.”

STILL POLISHING

Randy Carlyle coached Dave Manson while as an assistant with the original Winnipeg Jets in 1995-96. And as the Ducks’ bench boss, he sees “almost a carbon copy” in Josh and the way he goes out playing defense.

But Josh has more than made a name for himself. That puck-moving ability he has been diligently working on has helped him amass a career-high 30 points, making him the Ducks’ top-scoring defenseman this season. He also has a team-best plus-24 rating and is the only Ducks player to have played in all 70 games.

“It’s more about his compete and the whole package,” Carlyle said. “I don’t think that you can say he’s truly an offensive player. I don’t think you can say he’s truly just a defensive player. I don’t think you can say he’s just a physical player. He brings a little bit of each to the table.

“The one thing you know is he’s a competitive kid who takes the game very serious. That’s the thing that I like about him. There’s no maintenance. You don’t have to worry about instilling any emotion into him. The one thing you want to do is you want to try to tamper it so that he’s under control more.

“But those are the things that I like in a player.”

The Ducks love him. General Manager Bob Murray took the step of trading potential future blue-liner Shea Theodore to Vegas so the Golden Knights would not select the unprotected Manson in last summer’s expansion draft. And they’ve rewarded Manson with a four-year contract extension that’ll pay him more than $4 million per season.

Maybe he doesn’t see himself ever being a finished product but Manson is out to give the Ducks someone they can always count on. Those who know him best see how serious he is about doing that.

“What I’m looking for is to just go out there every night and be the same player,” Manson said. “Consistency. Just getting through games and not making many mistakes, if any at all. Helping out in little ways.

“Not flying under the radar but when you’re one of those guys who just goes out there and they know what to expect out of you. They’re going to get it every night and you do it well. That’s what I’m looking for.”